Cover Story

Sports tourism flags off in India

The emergence of sports tourism as a serious revenue stream for travel agents is symbolic of the industry's onward evolution. Bhavika Jhaveri reports on trends, opportunities and challenges that this new segment holds

Sports has a universal appeal that traverses all geographical, cultural and class barriers uniting humanity in palpable excitement. Sports and travel share a symbiotic relation, whereby people are attracted to a particular destination as a sport event participant (active), an event spectator, or to attend sport attractions of that place (passive). In fact the concept started with British nationals travelling abroad for winter sports. The first such sports tourism package can possibly be traced back to 1898 when Sir Henry Lunn, a British travel agent, organised a 10-day skiing holiday in the Alps for a group of 10 for a princely sum of US $15.

Sports tourism today is a worldwide phenomenon billed in several billions of dollars. According to Sports Tourism International Council (STIC), sports tourism could well account for 32 per cent of the total tourism market in coming years. While some Indian travel agents and tour operators have dabbled in sports tourism, it is only now that the market is witnessing an emergence of specialists and agents who are shaping it as a niche generating serious levels of revenue.

Home turf, stirring

India has been put down as a unidimensional country with its interest in sports restricted to cricket over the years. That, to an extent, explains why it is a late inductee to this growing worldwide trend.

The counter-trend of Indians travelling abroad extensively has, to an extent, changed perceptions about their compulsion to travel; one of them potentially being for active and passive sports. Visible evidence of this is found in the promotion of golf packages, football and tennis tournaments by NTOs and Formula1 Grand Prix. Get Lionel India, a K K Birla group travel company, forayed into sports tourism last year, with a primary focus on the corporate segment. Gaurav Sundaram, CEO of Get Lionel India Ltd, opines, "In the next two to three years sports tourism will comprise approximately Rs 200 to 250 crore of our turnover. The segment hasn't been tracked by many companies but there has been a consistent trend in metros of large groups of people travelling abroad for a sports event."

Mumbai-based Trust Travels pioneered the trend of promoting Formula1 Grand Prix in India as a reason to travel abroad, especially to the Sepang circuit in Malaysia. According to Manoharan, director of Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board (Ministry of Culture, Arts & Tourism), the number of Indians travelling there has increased appreciably from around 600 visitors in 2004 to 1,200 in 2005 (100 per cent increase). Tourism Malaysia, which actively promotes Formula1 in India, is encouraging corporate houses to use sport events as an incentive for their dealers and top performers. "Sports tourism is a small segment in India, but it ensures higher returns since a sports traveller is a high spender," he says.

Emboldened by the response of Indian outbound travellers, agents are now busy promoting tours for the upcoming FIFA World Cup to corporate houses and incentive groups. Both SOTC and Thomas Cook have tied up with Emirates, the official carrier of the tournament, to avail tickets. P Srinivas, VP (Special Interest Tours) at SOTC-Kuoni Travel, explains, "Since India is not a participating country, one has to tie-up with Emirates to get distribution rights. We intend to send around 400 people from India." Majority of the booking was done almost a year ago since any world event leads to exorbitant room tariffs and shortage of accommodation. "Our sports packages have been created keeping logistics in mind. For the FIFA packages we have arranged for accommodation in the suburbs of the city that is hosting a match. Transportation worries have also been taken care of," Srinivas adds.

Thinking a step further, agents are also trying to position themselves to cash in on the upcoming ICC World Cup 2007 in the Caribbean for which generating enthusiasm is merely a matter of declaring that one has tickets. Cricket Logistics 2007, the official tour operator for the World Cup, has appointed Official Travel Agents (OTAs) who are required to adhere to the strict guidelines laid down by Cricket World Cup and the International Cricket Council (ICC) in terms of ticket prices and other conditions. Trust Travel & Tours Pvt Ltd, which is also one of the OTAs for the World Cup, has rolled out packages ranging from one week to three weeks and will soon release integrated cruise packages as well. Zakkir Ahmed, its MD, says, "We had 1,500 people travel to the World Cup in South Africa with us last year. This premier cricket event is perhaps the only one to draw so many Indians overseas at one time. This year, we are targeting close to 700 people. Unlike South Africa, visa and accessibility are an issue this time or the numbers would have surely been much higher."

Specialist v/s allrounder

Worldwide, the trend for sports tourism specialists is a given. But in India, that profile is still more the exception. Sports Abroad, a Special Interest Tours division of SOTC-Kuoni Travel created three years ago, is driven by the conviction that there is a growing interest in new destinations. With several corporations sponsoring sporting events, the company too is showing keen interest in opting for sports holiday packages for its employees and clients. Srinivas says, "We have been taking Indian fans of Formula1 regularly to various international circuits and Sepang by far is the most popular one. Veteran Indian travellers are taking to it in a major way, packing their bags for events as far flung and varied as Wimbledon, the French Open, the Golf Dubai Desert Classic, the Spanish La Liga, sundry skiing competitions and the biggest draw - Formula 1 racing."

Bangalore-based Sports Services Pvt Ltd is rated as one of the few truly sports tourism focused outfits which is into club holidays, top sports events and counseling on how to create specialised packages. Shankar Vishwa-nathan, its director, explains, "We have ventured into sports travel because we are convinced that it will constitute a major part of the Indian travel trade. We have collaborated with south India-based Travel Tours and have the wherewithal to take Indians to any country to witness any sports event."

According to Vishwanathan, sports travel in India started to pick up after the Cricket World Cup in South Africa in 2003. "Cricket still constitutes nearly 70 per cent of our total business. However, in the next three to five years, we see football, golf and Formula1 accounting for a larger share of our business." While major tour operators are vying for corporate houses, Sports Services is targeting the sports enthusiast who is fond of travelling. It is currently formulating packages for the Ryder Cup in Ireland and Asian Games in Doha. "We are testing the market. Our strategy is to cover a wide spectrum of sports and offer a wide array of choices," avers Vishwanathan.

Untapped potential

Active sports tourism, where tourists indulge in activities like adventure sports or golf apart from sightseeing, is still a largely untapped segment. While the Japanese and the Chinese constitute a major chunk of active sports tourists worldwide, Indians still have some way go.

Manoharan says, "Due to the rainy season in India from June to October, a good number of people travel to Langkawi, Penang to play golf. There are around 40,000 to 50,000 golfers registered in India so the potential is huge. We promote our golf packages through various tour operators."

Many travellers prefer to play golf rather than watch and this is a largely high-end tourism phenomenon. Major golf destinations like the Far East, Dubai, Ireland, Scotland and South Africa are emerging in the Indian consciousness. Carl Vaz, country manager for Dubai's Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM), says, "Our proximity to India makes a range of world class golf courses accessible to the Indian tourist. To begin with, we are looking to reach corporate golfers."

Game on

Tourism, like any other business, is vulnerable to the hazards of stagnation and the only way to pre-empt this danger is innovation. Tour operators and NTOs in India have been doing their bit to make sports tourism look like the next reliable bet to create a captive market to the extent that destinations, particularly in South East Asia, are already competing with each other for Indian tourists who don't want to sit on their hands through a sightseeing routine.

Besides sports tourism, both active and passive, is essentially a high-end tourism phenomenon with agents earning margins ranging from 10 to 15 per cent as compared five to 10 per cent on vanilla tour packages. Moreover, the segment of institutional sports travel, wherein students and domestic clubs travel to play sports at club level, has not even been tapped. Considering that betting is illegal in India while it is a thriving multi-billion dollar business in Europe, live action suddenly holds a massive appeal for the older age group which has been identified as having the largest disposable income.

Racetracks, cricket grounds, golf courses and football stadiums across the Atlantic present innumerable avenues for travel agents to fly Indians to for an experience they haven't yet absorbed. Whether they are game or not hinges purely on how foresighted they are.